


The Great British Baking Show with Shapeshifters

by Razi



Category: Greath British, The Great British Bake Off RPF
Genre: Baking, Other, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 22:19:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14506677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Razi/pseuds/Razi
Summary: In a later season, the producers decide to spice up the show by bringing in contestants who are all shapeshifters.





	The Great British Baking Show with Shapeshifters

Most of the werewolves went out in the first few weeks. And the Selkie had a real problem with sharp objects.

By the time it got down to eight of us, I’d only see two of the others transform. One was a fairy changeling, they’re all over the place up here. Plus his name was Zephyr, so no surprises there. He had to be using fairy magic in his cooking—some of his dishes were too good. Sue Perkins almost ate half of his croquembusch, but I counterspelled her.

When she came to thank me later, I gave her a charm that should keep most fey magic at bay. She kept looking at me like she wanted to ask what I was, but she didn’t. She knows her stuff, knows better than to ask.

I’d have told her.

Maria was definitely a jaguar and she stuck very close to the guy I’m quite certain was a cat in human form. His name wasn’t Felix, but that’s what I called him in my mind.

One fairy and two cats (they are _really_ good at meat pies!), which left me and three unknowns: Irry, Kadijah and Veronique.

Pretty sure Irry is a dragon. She smells like fire and sunlight and knowledge. Plus her oven is always the right temperature. Except that one time when junior junior producer Fred pissed her off and the entire tent got much too hot. We called that “the great Baked Alaska disasta.”

Kadijah is definitely _not_ a djinn. Fred asked her in the early rounds and she deconstructed his racist assumptions with a fierceness that I wanted to … well, not bottle … that I wanted to bake into my sachertorte and feed to everyone.

I can’t tell what she is and I’ve started to wonder if maybe she’s like me. I want there to be another one like me here. That’s why I came on this show in the first place. I do _not_ like baking in front of people. Except Sue. I’d bake in front of Sue all day.

Really all the people running the show are top notch. Oh and I saw Mary transform the other day behind the main building when she thought no one was around. I’m not going to tell you, just that you would not be at all disappointed.

Paul … he’s the silver fox for a reason.

*

Zephyr went out shortly after Paul and Mary got warded against fey magic. And then Felix ran afoul of a shocking amount of spun sugar, which was the week my fondant fancy was anything but. His fur-plus-caramel debacle saved me.

Going into the next week of the show, I heard Fred talking with a camera guy. Fred was saying, “Wow it’s all women already. Are women shapeshifters better at baking? Is that a thing?”

The camera guy shrugged.

I looked around the room. Most everyone who could hear it was studiously ignoring this conversation, except Kadi who only looked away when she saw me looking.

Someone had to save this guy, or at least the show, if Fred was fool enough to take this idea and run with it.

I walked over and said, “We’re not all women.”

Fred tried again, “Uh, females?”

“No,” I told him. “You invited us on a show called The Great British Baking Show _with_ _Shapeshifters_ , right? For some of us, these aren’t our original forms.”

The camera guy fussed with his equipment so he wouldn’t have to interact with either of us. Fred looked to him for help but didn’t get any, so he tried saying, “Yeah but if you’re like a seal, or whatever, don’t you turn from a female seal into a woman?”

I leaned against a table and tried to keep the exasperation out of my voice. Sometimes I liked explaining this stuff to regular humans. “Selkies do, as far as I know. You know that a lot of animals change sex, right? Fish and lizards especially, and there are some lizards that only have one sex, like dragons.”

“Dragons … are real?”

“Oh, uh, that was a metaphor,” I said quickly. “Anyway, it depends on the shifter whether we have the same anatomical sex between forms, or even if that’s possible. And most don’t have the same gender because gender doesn’t translate like that. For example, if you turn into one of those kinds of birds that has three different males, you might be a human male, but which of the male bird forms do you turn into?”

“But you’re a woman,” he said. “And she is and … everyone looks like women.”

“I’m not,” I said, swallowing down a dense sigh. “Not always, woman or female. And I’m only telling you so you won’t call this an ‘all woman’ show. Don’t go around asking about people’s forms or their sex and gender in their forms. Those are not polite questions and, really, if you value your life, do not ask Irry any of that. Actually, just you shouldn’t even talk to her.”

“Why? What’s she?”

“I’m not 100% sure, but definitely bigger than a djinn.”

When I got back to my station, I glanced across at Irry. She was watching me and gave me a half-smile with her mouth slightly open, one side of her lip raised to show a long eye-tooth, and the glint of fire in the back of her throat.

“Thanks for not burning it all down,” I whispered and she chuckled. 

*

When we had our complex twisty bread loaves in the over, Kadi came over to my station and asked, “What did Fred want?”

“To be able to say we’re all women. I told him no.”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah, sure. I told him for me, though, not you. I mean, not that I wouldn’t have. Uh.” I lasped back into the kind of stupid silence I tended to hit around Kadi. I mean, she was cute, sure, but she also had this super-composed thing that made me feel like half my body was elbows.

She said, “sisterhood, right,” and smirked. “What do you think Veronique is?”

“I really can’t tell. She’s got that fur smell, like the wolves get, but lighter. Not fox and definitely not badger.”

“I’ve been hoping she’s a wolverine. You figured out Irry?”

“Gold and fire, that’s only a few possibilities.”

Kadi nodded and we didn’t elaborate because we didn’t need to. Plus Irry could probably hear every single thing in the tent.

*

Then it happened.

Veronique lost it. Turns out she was not a wolverine. Unless she some wolverines have wings, but much more likely some kind of griffin.

Mary had to transform and go after her with a containment spell. She’s the only one of us fast enough, other than Irry, who’d have eaten Veronique. But we were due to be filming again in minutes. Everyone’s dish was about to come out of the oven. If we had to wait for judging, they were going to be ruined.

Sue, Mel and the other producers gathered in a frantic huddle.

I did not want to come out like this. But I’d grown really fond of the show and felt pretty sure Kadi or Irry was going to win this. I wanted one of them to win and, scared as I was of coming out, I figured Irry probably wouldn't eat me. She had to have figured out there was at least one of our kind in the tent. Honestly, I didn't know what dragons thought about people like me, but the werewolves and most of the animal shifters hated us. 

I touched Sue on the elbow and said quietly, “I can be Mary.”

“Excuse me.”

“It’s my transform. I’m a mim. I’m a person who turns into other people. I can mimic Mary. No one will know.”

She interrupted the rest of the chatter and got everyone turned toward me. “Can you show us?” she asked.

I never did my transform in front of others. It wasn't safe. But Sue was giving me that curious smile she gets that makes you want to tell her everything. And from across the tent Irry gave me a nod. 

I turned into Mary Berry. I said, “This filling has been baked to perfection. Look at the even color on the crust here and all these layers.”

“Oh. My. God,” Mel said.

“You’re even wearing what she’s wearing,” Sue said.

“It’s part of my magic. Mims make perfect duplicates, minus most of her memories.”

“Most?” Mel asked.

“Anyone I touch, I get a basic thought/feeling map of them so I can be a better mimic.”

“Okay, let’s get you miced up and do this,” She said. “Thank you so much. Can you do me later?”

She meant mimic, right? “Uh, sure. It’s going to be weird, though.”

“Do you ever, go to people’s family events for them?” Sue asked without missing a beat.

“That’s actually my day job.”

“We need to talk after all this,” she told me.

While they were getting a mic on me and adjusting my clothes and emoting over how exactly like Mary I was, Kadi sidled over to me.

She said, very quietly, “You don’t have to.”

Was she offering?

“We need the judges,” I pointed out.

“You’re not the only mim,” said softly, her eyes watching her feet or maybe mine.

I brushed her arm with fingers, got her to look up so she’d see my grin as I said, “Yeah, but I’m the only mim whose tart is going to come out of the over with the soggiest bottom you’ve ever seen.”

“You don’t have a soggy bottom,” she told me, sirking.

Oh! Flirting! I could totally have handled this if I wasn’t busy being Mary Berry.

I said, “Well, that’s a bit of all right.”

She laughed and I got pulled off to do the official judging thing, though in the end they let Paul decide since my tastebuds had not actually turned into Mary Berry’s.

 

 


End file.
